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Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary?

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Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

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Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters

‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Reviews Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary? Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting

Getting Hooked on Quitting

Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary?

Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous

Is College Necessary?

Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear

Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters

‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Kim Thayil’s “A Screaming Life” will make you hear Soundgarden differently

Rich with perspective, the band's lead guitarist revisits Seattle's music scene and the loss of Chris Cornell

Published June 9, 2026 12:00PM (EDT)

2026 has been a year of great music books, and another contender for that list has arrived. Soundgarden founding member and guitarist Kim Thayil gives us “A Screaming Life: Into the Superunknown with Soundgarden and Beyond,” out on June 9. “A Screaming Life” isn’t a massive tome, but it still manages to dive deep when it matters, and also when you least expect it to.

Memoir is challenging for many reasons, with the decision of how much intricate detail of one’s life and work to include at the top of that list. It’s a difficult line to walk if you want to be a decent human being — obviously, people writing tell-all memoirs understand that they’ve decided to open all the doors and air all the dirty laundry, no matter how it impacts people on the periphery. People want dirt, and it’s easy to give it to them.

Thayil does not do any of this in “A Screaming Life,” but he also does not avoid difficult subjects, including the disintegration and breakup of the band in 1997, as well as the death by suicide of his friend, Soundgarden lead singer Chris Cornell, in Detroit in 2017. The book follows a loose but kinetic structure that keeps moving forward, and as the reader progresses through the story, you might find yourself gingerly turning the page to the next chapter, dreading the inevitable moment when the band learns of Cornell’s passing. Thayil tells the story by bringing the reader along with him as he first hears the rumors and then has the news confirmed. It isn’t histrionic; it is honest, and it is awful — but those are the accurate emotions.

Thayil told Salon, “I wasn’t initially comfortable with being more intimate or in any way that would be confessional as I understand memoirs to be somewhat, right? And I didn’t feel like I owed that to anyone. At some point, I thought, well, maybe I owe it to myself. Maybe it’s interesting to get some perspective on the achievements and the gains and the loss. I thought maybe I owe that to our friends.”

The book follows a loose but kinetic structure that keeps moving forward, and as the reader progresses through the story, you might find yourself gingerly turning the page to the next chapter, dreading the inevitable moment when the band learns of Cornell’s passing.

Of course, those friends include other famous Seattle musicians, both the ones still present and the ones who left........

© Salon